I think some of my like-minded fellows, perhaps eager to dump on Trump, have been overstating the magnitude of Biden's victory in the presidential race. For example, one claim in wide circulation holds that "not since FDR defeated Hoover in 1932 has a challenger received a higher percentage of the national vote than Biden." Unless I'm overlooking something, this is a true fact, not an alternate one, but it also elides other relevant facts, such as that since 1932 only three incumbents seeking another term have been defeated. These were Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, and Geo H W Bush in 1992, the victors being Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, respectively. Perhaps the rarity of an incumbent losing might be adduced to add to Trump's humiliation, but in two of those three other instances there was an independent third party candidate who pulled a significant percentage of the vote: Ohio congressman John Anderson got about 7% of all votes cast in 1980, and Texas businessman Ross Perot got close to 20% of the vote in 1992. It was these relatively successful third-party candidacies that held Reagan's share of the vote (50.7%) and Clinton's (43.0%) below Biden's share, which currently stands at 50.9%. The Reagan and Clinton victories were both somewhat wider than Biden's in terms of percentage margin over their nearest rival.
Another thing one hears is that in 2016 Trump won the presidency by less than 78,000 votes across three states—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—and that this year Biden won those states by well over 230,000. This is another true fact. The problem is that the comparison isn't parallel. Trump's three narrowest victories in the named states boosted his electoral vote count from 260 to 306. Biden's three narrowest victories are going to be in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin (not Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), and those wins lifted his electoral vote tally from 269 to 306. So both Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 crossed the 270 finish line with their third narrowest victory, then settled at 306 by adding their second narrowest and narrowest wins. But while Trump's margin was just under 78,000 in his three states, Biden's looks as if it's going to be under 50,000 in his. Biden won the Electoral College by less than Trump did.
Another true statement about the election, one that I think isn't in any respect misleading, would be that Trump, though he is going to lose the popular vote by at least 51-47 percent, in the range of 6 to 7 million ballots, came within a shallow breath of "winning" the election. Or try another formulation, also true. Trump, to get 306 electoral votes in 2016, had only to come within 3 million of his opponent. In 2020, Biden did 9 million better than that—he's going to win by at least 6 million instead of lose by 3 million—and also got 306 electoral votes. The Washington Post draws the necessary conclusion.
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